No care. No self.
Just optimisation and the endless scroll.
Scroll,
#cleanlook.
Scroll,
#fitness.
Scroll,
#GRWM.
Scroll,
#OOTD.
Scroll,
skinny.
Scroll,
intermittent fasting.
Scroll,
high-protein.
Scroll,
perfect skin.
Scroll,
cottage cheese.
Scroll,
glow-up.
Scroll,
protein powder.
Scroll,
detox.
Scroll,
#WhatIEatInADay.
Scroll,
#food.
Scroll,
#pilatestok.
Scroll,
collagen.
Scroll,
cortisol.
Scroll,
calorie deficit.
Scroll,
probiotics.
Scroll,
affirmations.
Scroll,
weighted blanket (DPS).
const infinite = () => {
window.scrollBy(0, 1);
requestAnimationFrame(infinite);
};
// while (true)
infinite();
I first downloaded TikTok in 2022.
My Saturn return had just started.
I entered the algorithm at my most disoriented, in the aftermath of multiple breakups.
Under construction.
I sleeked my eyebrows, got lip filler, started fitboxing.
Coffee first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach.
A calorie-counting app.
Creams and products to feel glowy.
Laser hair removal.
Then,
matcha because coffee spikes cortisol,
meaning “you gain weight”.
No caffeine.
Chia and green juice for constipation.
Becoming desirable to the gaze of others.
Users watch themselves being looked at.
Mar Vallverdú calls it The follower Gaze.
Life is measured against the possibility of a like and followers.
When online,
warm.
The algorithms are trained on our sensitivity.
Ourselves as an extension of the platforms we say we want to abandon.
Is resistance possible inside systems optimised for ease?
Take something.
Turn it into a system.
Optimise it.
When systems feel unfixable:
your skin.
your sleep.
your gut.
I kept following the algorithm,
like a higher voice.
I lost myself.
I forgot who I was.
I swiped toward what was supposed to be ideal,
what was supposed to be desirable.
Running, yoga, low calories.
No sugar.
But,
instead of losing weight:
my body changed completely,
my clothes no longer fitted.
Obsession produces the opposite effect.
My body was trying to say something,
but I wasn’t listening.
I wasn’t paying attention.
I was just scrolling.
NPC.
Basic.
Mid.
Hiding.
The performance consumed me.
Anxiety.
Disconnection.
Constipation.
The phone so close it suffocates the gaze.
Distance, unavailable.
No perspective.
No breath.
Body image is shaped by what we see online.
An evaluative function through which we compare our perceived self to others’ projections.
Algorithmic feeds restructure how we perceive ourselves.
If you think about calories, you don’t think about anything else.
A form of control when everything else feels uncontrollable.
Insecurity.
Orthorexia nervosa.
A pathological obsession with “proper” nutrition.
Hyper-awareness.
The logic of neoliberal self-improvement culture, treating the body as a site of optimisation.
A false language of care that quietly turns into restriction.
The body,
an aesthetic vessel.
In 2024, I wrote this:
My phone as an extension.
Body awareness silenced.
Gestures suspended in pause, automated.
Algorithms feed me somatic practices, multiple personas sharing their rituals.
Yet I remain horizontal — trapped in the looping choreography of scrolling.
Lying on my sofa, I watch a YouTube vlog on the TV while eating the latest viral ice cream,
a food influencer’s TikTok recommendation.
An intricate dance unfolds between vertical and horizontal planes.
The radio hums faintly in the background,
the Oxford Word of the Year is announced: brainrot.
I reach for my laptop on the floor, searching for the term.
Tabs multiply — I’ll likely never revisit them.
Still, I let them linger, saved, like frozen thoughts.
My body remains static, tethered by inertia, while my attention fractures.
Split between screens, fleeting words, ephemeral inputs.
Four devices.
One brain.
No body.
Then, I finally deleted TikTok.
It was after watching Iceberg by Les Heyvan at Teatre Tantarantana.
Live performance restores what the screen removes.
Bodies in a room with other bodies.
A somatic re-entry.
Reflection.
After the play, the mirror was reversed.
I realised that whenever I wanted to disconnect,
I scrolled.
A patch.
A temporary fix.
Fragile,
exposed.
As Mar Manrique writes in La ligereza del scroll infinito:
“The lightness with which we move our index finger across the screen is tied to how we process what unfolds in front of us… How can a one-minute video truly move me?”
That gesture;
so light,
so effortless.
A daily oscillation:
eroding our capacity to feel,
to stay,
to process.
I was watching to not feel alone.
To not be with my own thoughts.
Gut health.
Hormonal balance.
Anti-inflammatory.
A false language of care that quietly turns into restriction.
Bekah Waalkes, in Belly Up:
“This concern for gut health operates as a nicely rebranded eating disorder — a set of restrictions that tell us what we can and can’t consume, in the name of internal ‘health’ that is measured by external markers: thinness, clear skin, radiant mood.”
“The metaphor of ‘gut health’ suggests an ever-increasing attention and responsibility to control our bodies — and from there, our instincts, which actually require a great deal of forethought, discernment, cultivation, and eventually, products to buy.”
The answer sits in ambiguity.
The line between personal narrative and advertisement blurs.
To look is to compare.
To compare is to correct.
And so the loop continues:
optimise,
consume,
adjust,
repeat.
Feed Me to the Algorithm (2025), a piece by Raquel Luaces, stages this condition.
The work addresses the representation of women on social media and the beauty and “self-care” expectations imposed upon them.
A bed covered in beauty products.
A laptop through which a dérive can be navigated.
An architecture of endless liminal corridors.
Images of women sourced from Pinterest, videos articulating discourses on femininity, and visual content that idealises “healthy” habits.
Layered with accumulating TikTok audio fragments.
The result is a sense of overload.
Of pressure.
Navigating the virtual space becomes suffocating.
Trapped within the algorithmic system.
What initially appears as inspirational, harmless content gradually reveals itself as a structure that demands constant effort to remain within the boundaries of a prescribed aesthetic.
Visual,
viral,
languages in friction.
The system anticipates you.
Feeds you.
You comply.
What does the algorithm want?
Merged and tethered.
Degrading together.
The feed has changed.
Instagram, Substack, and YouTube.
Still in my phone.
Now,
Is the rise of the expert influencer.
Knowing things as the new social currency.
Intelligence as the new aesthetic.
The loop doesn’t care what it optimises.
The gaze remains.
I want to be beautiful.
I want to be intelligent.
A continuous negotiation between self-expression and performance.